Life sentence for Eastborough killer

The scene following the bloody murder last year

Published:16:22Thursday 06 March 2014

A drug addict has been jailed for life for the bloody murder of a 41-year-old man at a Scarborough flat.

A judge says Kevin John Pickering, 30 of Royal Crescent, will spend at least 23 years in prison after a jury found him guilty of the murder at Leeds Crown Court of the murder of Jonathan Binns on August 7 last year.

He had admitted stabbing Mr Binns in the thigh while trying to rob him along with a trio of accomplices of some drugs at a flat in Eastborough but he severed the femoral artery causing his victim to bleed to death.

Sentencing Pickering, who admitted robbery, Mr Justice Dingemans said it was accepted he had not intended to kill Mr Binns but that was what happened when knives were used.

He said when one of Pickering’s accomplices David White started punching Mr Binns to try and get him to hand over his drugs it was Pickering who escalated the violence by picking up a kitchen knife.

He had cut Mr Binns in the face with it and when he still would not let go of his coat containing the drugs Pickering jabbed him in the leg. The group then fled with his coat later sharing the drugs from it.

In a statement, Binns’ family said they have been left devastated by his death.